Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Thomas,
If you claim evil exists then you are claiming there is some universal moral standard or law by which both good and evil exist.

In fact this is how I define God.

You just proved my God exists.


Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Thomas,
Correction. *Every* competent apologist uses this argument. See <a href="http://members.tripod.com/~vantillian/debates.html" target="_blank">here</a> for a whold gaggle of contemporary apologists who use it. In addition I have never heard a competent rebuttal.
The only argument the atheist can muster is 'Well why can't the universe have always existed?' Seldom do they admit that all empirical evidence (big bang, entropy, etc) suggests the universe did not always exists and did have a beginning.


Uh.m..there is no 'Lottery Fallacy'.

I believe what you are refering to is the wearisome atheistic claim that 'somebody always wins the lottery so we shouldn't be suprised at that we won the lottery of life'.

Of course the correct usage of the lottery analogy would be to paint 100 billion people red and one or two people blue then ask the question 'What is the probablity that a blue person wins the lottery?' Unfortunately for the athiest one can statistically show that if a blue person (life) is chosen one can have absolutely no confidence that this happened at random. Thus one must reject the hypothesis that a life (blue person) happened at random.


Translation: The only contemporary proponents I can think of is everybody.

Until you can form a single convincing argument that objective moral law does not exist I'll consider this a closed issue.


Hmm...lets see.

On one hand we have over 26,000 documents describing in detail God's interaction and relationship with man AND the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ AND this collection of documents has been analyzed, verified and authenticated a plethera of times AND there are a multitude of supporting non-Biblical sources verify many facts in this collection AND we have a single event that had such tremendous ramification and impact that now, more than 2000 years later over 2 billion people claim it to be true....

...and on the other hand we have some Scottish guy who doesn't believe in God saying 'You shouldn't believe in miracles.'


Hmm...tough call. Think I'll 'go out on a limb' and stick with the first one.



Great.

So now you are not only saying I should disregard all the global evidences of God...your are saying I should disregard all my personal experience, knowledge and witness of God as well.

Amazing.


Tell me...at what point in your life did you decide to completely shut your eyes?

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

randomsyllable

Actually, the version of the big bang theory I was taught in my "mere" high school was that it is merely the start of a replicating cycle, offering therefore no definable beginning.
Your statement about entropy is not quite correct. I'm guessing you mean to imply that because entropy increases as a constant, there was a point of less entropy approaching zero. However, I though it was postulated that the universe continues to expand, therefore leaving the average entropy at a constant level as the geometric expansions of the universe and entropic buildup progressed equally - I could be mistaken, but I think that's how it worked.

Forgive me, but I'm not sure how your claim is valid. By applying equal chance for anyone to "win the lottery" and then comparing the probablilty of the 10000000000 containing the winner as compared to the 2 seem fallacious because I thought there was no claim that the other 10000000000 couldn't exist as well. Correct me here, but I thought the argument against fine tuning was based on the concept that there were "red painted people" existant who did win the lottery as well, but that did not diminish the (however small) chance that "blue" people could win too.

I seem to recall a long thread about this...
<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=52&t=000181" target="_blank">here</a> or <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=14&t=000607&p=" target="_blank">this thread?</a>

I forget, but the point is that Moral Objectivity does not pressupose a god even should moral objectivity exist. I think thats how I'd work that out at least. But I'm young and unwise ;p

Ummm...first, what 26,000 documents are we talking about? If this includes such things as the Vatican Library, it is highly suspect as the contents thereof were proven to be transcribed from previous documents and a couple subject to editing - there was a story in a newspaper up here about that. I'll try to find a url for you.

There also seems to be argumentum ad populum here.
"Non-biblical sources" - does this mean "not-from the bible" or "not from the time period"? Either way, books by ID "scientists" are not from the time period and would probably support your claim, but they have proven to be fallacious. To take a page from Koy's book, the Essenes were "biblical", beating out the NT by a couple hundred years - they have their own ressurectiuon myth - is this "support" or evidence that there is no special claim laid by the ressurection myth in the bible? I dunno, I think its makes for a great little study though - something to do in my history class I guess.

Argumentum ad populum I believe. "Oh more people say one thing, I better be a good little drone and agree with them." Or at least thats my take on what you said - you seem to imply that because of a long history and a large support base you are therefore right.

What global evidences? I don't think the point is "disregard" your "experience, knowledge and witness of God" but instead, prove that these experiences are the result of the Judeo-Christian God, that your knowledge isn't false, etc.

I think I'll let someone else run with this one. Its too easy. ;p

[ August 09, 2002: Message edited by: randomsyllable ]</p>

Kantian

My dear Satan, that is a soaking wet strawman. In the haste to cover your behind, you have reduced yourself to putting words in Thomas' mouth. It seems that making bad arguments are all you are capable of, so far.

FWIW, I can define evil without resorting to a universal moral standard or without the backing of God. There are hypothetical imperatives that are dependent upon contingent, empirical data, such as the passions and inclinations, and then there are categorical ones that are dependent upon reason alone. Neither requires an appeal to God.

So eager to claim victory! Could you process this proof in a logical syllogism, that is if you are certain that it is a proof of your God?

[ August 09, 2002: Message edited by: Immanuel Kant ]</p>

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Random,
Well...lets do the math.


You have 100,000,000,000 people and 1 lottery.
99,999,999,999 of these people are red.
2 of these people are blue.

This is analogous of the FTA because out of all the possible configurations of the universe almost 0% are friendly to life. The vast, vast, vast, vast majority of them are unihabitable.

In the above example red people represent universes that aren't life friendly. Blue people represent the universes that are.

Now while it is true that any person could win this lottery AND that any particular persons chance of winning the lottery is 1 in 100 billion the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of these people are red (non life friendly).

What is the probability that a blue person (life friendly universe) wins the lottery?

2 in 100 billion.


Lottery spins...blue person wins.


If our hypothesis is that a blue person won (a life friendly universe happened) at random, we can use statistics to determine that we should reject this hypothesis with unbelievable amounts of confidence.


Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Kant,

How is...

'the existence of Evil implies a moral standard or law by which Evil and Good exist'

...a strawman?

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Thomas Metcalf

See my post earlier in this topic for a link to the studies. I'm also aware of the fact that most professional scientists are atheists.

TooBad

You've misquoted yourself. You left out "universal". Not a trivial omission.

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Ok...

How is...

'the existence of Evil implies a universal moral standard or law by which Evil and Good exist'

...a strawman?

SOMMS

Thomas Metcalf

Then your god is not essentially sentient, morally good, or much else. I would not call this being a god.

More importantly, atheologians use "gratuitous evil" to mean some form of suffering. Nick Tattersall thoroughly debunked this Zachariasian counter-argument in the II library, but apparently you failed to familiarize yourself with the arguments in question as this forum asks you to do.

Suffering exists whether or not some universal objective morality exists.